Animals are often used to detect devices and/or substances that are not easily detectable by humans/equipment, and are commonly used in situations where the animal has a greater sensory response to a particular odour than a human/equipment.
In order for an animal to accurately determine the presence of particular devices and/or substances, the animal must first be trained to seek out odours associated with the particular devices and/or substances.
Such training is commonly carried out by rewarding the animal when it indicates the location of a training odour, so that the animal learns to seek out the training odour in the expectation of receiving a reward, for example food/toy/praise.
One of the problems with training animals is that the animal can often distinguish between training scenarios and real scenarios due to the inherent differences between them, and this can lead to differences in performance between different scenarios.
In particular, in a training scenario the animal handler needs to be aware of where the training odour is located, so that the animal can be rewarded when it indicates that location, however in a real scenario, the animal handler will not be aware of the location of the devices and/or substances that have the training odour.
Animal handlers naturally have a desire to see their animals succeed in training tasks, and may consciously or unconsciously give visual cues to their animals that assist the animals in reaching the correct locations, particularly in situations where the animal handler and animal are being assessed for their effectiveness.
If the animal is trained when the animal handler is aware of the correct location, then the animal may take cues from the animal handler as to the correct location, and use these cues rather than the training odour to determine the location of the devices and/or substances. Then, when the animal is used in a real scenario where the animal handler is not aware of the correct location, the animal may be much less effective in determining the location of devices and/or substances having the training odour.
If the animal is trained whilst the animal handler is not aware of the correct location, then the animal handler cannot determine whether the animal is indicating the correct location and cannot determine whether or not to reward the animal. Rewarding the animal when it should not be rewarded, or not rewarding the animal when it should be rewarded, can result in confusing the animal, such that training becomes less efficient or ineffective.
It is therefore an aim of the invention to enhance the training of the animal.